Someday soon Haelen Hyperbarics will reach across the nation and its hyperbaric oxygen therapy will be an everyday part of the nation's healthcare, if the management team's vision comes true. The Hilton Head Island, SC-based company plans to open centers in Raleigh; West Palm Beach, FL; Austin; Savannah, GA; and Memphis, TN, by the end of the year. The company is considering Charlotte as well.
The Masonic Home of Louisville expects to start work next month on a new skilled-care nursing facility at its 81-acre campus off Frankfort Avenue. The $25 million, 136-bed Louisville Care Center would have about 180,000 square feet, making it more than three times larger than the skilled-care center it would replace, the St. John's Day League HealthCare Center. The new center will include areas for residents with late-stage Alzheimer's disease, rehabilitation and a dialysis clinic that will be open to the public.
The Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance is starting a new Web site that has quality reports that compare performance and outcomes of all 162 primary acute care hospitals in the state. Users of the Web site can look up hospitals' track records for treating heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia, or preventing certain hospital-acquired infections. Those four categories were the first chosen, in part, because they are ailments among the most common and most costly for hospitals, said Alliance representatives.
Researchers at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare are reporting that screening all hospital patients for MRSA can sharply reduce hospital-acquired infections. The study comes a week after a well-publicized study that concluded screening of surgical patients for methicillin-resistant Staphyloccocus aureus isn't especially effective. Some experts suggest they are in fact complementary: The overall message is that "a very comprehensive, aggressive MRSA screening program can significantly reduce the number of infections," said Lance Peterson, MD, founder of Evanston Northwestern's MRSA screening program.
Beginning in 2000, the leadership at Virginia Mason hospital looked at their infrastructure and saw it was designed around them, not the patient. They then began looking for a better way to improve quality, safety and patient satisfaction. After two years of searching, they discovered the Toyota Production system, also known as lean manufacturing, and Virginia Mason has tailored the Japanese model to fit healthcare.
The family of a now-deceased illegal immigrant who said he was denied medical care for cancer can sue the federal government for damages, a federal judge ruled, calling the allegations "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment. A U.S. attorney's office spokesman said the government might appeal.